


Soup Cans and String

by agent85



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fitz Is a Sweetheart, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5031292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/pseuds/agent85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I, uh, I have something for you. If you want it."</p><p>She gives him a small smile, but he doesn't see it, so she reaches for his sleeve and gently tugs him in the room. It's her fault, she decides. She's the one who took a perfect evening and ruined it with racking sobs. Now he's afraid he'll break her.</p><p>[Post 3x03]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soup Cans and String

The knock on her door is soft, hesitant, and she wishes that it doesn't have to be. But she isn't much better, and she has to take a breath in and out before she can open the door and face him.

"Hi Fitz."

He doesn't respond to her as much as he just stares at her with wide eyes, blinking once or twice in the dim light of the Playground. After a moment, his eyes go to his hands, and she realizes that he's holding something.

"I, uh, I have something for you. If you want it."

She gives him a small smile, but he doesn't see it, so she reaches for his sleeve and gently tugs him in the room. It's her fault, she decides. She's the one who took a perfect evening and ruined it with racking sobs. Now he's afraid he'll break her.

"Fitz?"

That makes him look up at her, and his eyes are still wide, but she takes in a small gasp when she sees that they're shining with an affection she couldn't possibly deserve. She realizes that her hand is still on his arm, and she doesn't have the power to move it.

"Well," he says, clearing his throat, "I was thinking . . . well, it's probably stupid. I just thought you might, you know, just in case you . . ." He closes his eyes. "You spend all your time here, by yourself, and you were all alone at that, at that place, and maybe you . . . I mean, I know you need to heal, but if you wanted me—or Daisy, or uh, Bobbi maybe, that you could . . . well, let me show you."

He opens his fist to produce a small, silver wristwatch that actually looks quite stunning. In his other hand, he holds out its twin, this one designed for a much bigger wrist.

"They talk to each other," he explains. "I mean, well, one talks to the other one. This one," he says, holding up the one that must be meant for her, "has a button you can push here, see? On the underside. Here, take it."

When he puts it in her hand, she first looks at him, and when he directs her to push the button, the other watch glows. She reaches for it with her other hand, and he lets her take that, too.

"It's warm," she says.

"Yeah, that's the notification system. I um, I didn't want it to be distracting."

She looks up at him then, with tears already forming in her eyes, because after all this, he still notices and remembers and cares. She's barely a human being, and he still cares for her.

"It, uh, it also shows your location. Only when you push the button, of course. Just so I can find you if you, um, you don't want to be alone. But if you  _do_  want to be alone, then you can be."

She turns over Fitz's watch in her hand, and sure enough, the clock face has been replaced with a map of the Playground with a blinking dot in her room. She looks at the watch meant for her.

"It's on mine, too. Your location."

Fitz shrugs. "I thought you'd want to know how long it would take me to get to you. It actually, it shows my location all the time, whenever you want to see it."

His fingers brush hers when he takes her watch, showing her the small button on the side that lets her toggle between the time and him. 

"So, um, well that's . . . that." He nods to himself, then turns on his heels and heads towards the door. Suddenly, she's in a panic.

"It's, uh, it won't work."

Fitz stops cold. "What?"

A thousand feelings are flooding through her—anxiety, fear, guilt, and more she couldn't name if she tried. They tumble through her veins and rattle in her brain, muddling the words that her lips are waiting for. And she has to say  _something_ , because it's her turn, really, and he'll never know unless she tells him.

"Well, it's just that . . . you, uh, you wouldn't get any work done."

He turns to her with a silent question, and she really shouldn't be this afraid, not of him, but why then is her heart threatening to beat out of her chest? Why is she shaking? She takes a breath to steady herself.

"I, um, well I only meant that I, uh, if I had the choice, you wouldn't  . . . I wouldn't let you leave."

His jaw goes slack, and he looks at her in a way she's never seen before, like she's the sun and he's content to melt in her rays. He stares at her for a long, hard minute, and she's sure that she's done something very wrong, that she's ruined it again somehow, and how cruel is it that she's broken and bent in this way? That she finally has everything she longed for, and she still can't reach it?

"Jemma," he says, and his voice is barely louder than a whisper. "You have a choice."

It's then that the tears come, but her smile shines through them, and when she reaches out for him, suddenly he's there. His arms wrap around her when the sobs come back, because in six months of terror she never had time to cry, and she has a lot to make up for. He holds her close, but she pulls him closer, hugs him tighter, and maybe they can fuse together so she never has to worry about being without him. Her head tucks under his chin, and his shirt soaks up her tears.

Everyone keeps telling her to do what it takes to heal, and for the first time, Jemma actually thinks that she might have found what she needs to get well again. It's the calming rhythm of his breaths, the feel of his hands as they go up and down her back, and the overwhelming realization that he's here, he's here, and he finally belongs to her.  

And when her tears run dry, she only holds him tighter, and when she feels him smile into her hair, she knows he understands that she belongs to him, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I regularly post sneak peeks and general ramblings about my writing on [my tumblr](http://agent-85.tumblr.com/tagged/Writings%20of%20Agent%2085).


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